Towards Real_World EDA Monitoring in Children- The Potential of Everyday Socks with Textile Electrodes

Abstract

Electrodermal activity (EDA) measurement in children is crucial for various physiological and psychological studies. Integrating EDA sensors into everyday clothing offers a comfortable and practical solution, facilitating data collection in naturalistic settings. This study explores the feasibility of using standard socks embedded with textile electrodes to monitor EDA in children aged 5-10 during video-based emotional stimulation. EDA signals were recorded from 11 participants at three locations: the left-hand finger, the right foot, and the left foot (via the sock). Commercial dry electrodes were used on the finger and foot, while the sock contained custom-made, copper-based textile electrodes. Signal similarity was assessed through cross-correlation and peak detection analyses, revealing median cross-correlation values of 0.37 and 0.62 for derivative and detrended data, respectively, between the sock and finger. Similar values were found between the sock and foot, with medians of 0.54 and 0.76. Peak detection showed an average of 8.99, 18.36, and 16.67 peaks for the sock, finger, and foot data, respectively. These preliminary results suggest that sock-based EDA monitoring in children is feasible, but further development is needed to reduce signal inconsistencies, enhance measurement reliability, and perform more comprehensive data analyses.